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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25739440">Like Hunger, Like Thirst</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondhand_watermelon/pseuds/secondhand_watermelon'>secondhand_watermelon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rhett &amp; Link</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Boner Protocol, Dick Pics, Link is a Thirst Trap, M/M, Rhett Wants a Drink, Tumblr Prompt, Unresolved Sexual Tension</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:22:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,281</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25739440</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondhand_watermelon/pseuds/secondhand_watermelon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>From a prompt by @holdbythenotsharp on Tumblr: </p><p>Link likes to take thirst trap photos of himself. Not to share, but just because. He deletes them eventually, but he likes to keep them and look at them for a bit. Some pics are more risque. Like the one that he took as he was still coming down from his orgasm, lips bitten and plump, face and torso flushed with heat, an unmistakable streak of white on his belly. Of course that would be the one Rhett accidentally sees when Link is merely trying to find a pic of a cool surfboard on his phone.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>119</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Like Hunger, Like Thirst</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdbythenotsharp/gifts">holdbythenotsharp</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks to @holdbythenotsharp for dropping by my inbox with this prompt and then patiently waiting seventeen years for me to finish writing. It's my process. Hope it was worth the wait, my friend!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You went and bought a surfboard without me.”</p><p>Link didn’t even glance behind him as he headed for their office, Rhett half a beat behind him.</p><p>“You went and bought one without me,” he reminded Rhett, pulling up his camera roll and scrolling, looking for the pictures he had taken of the new surfboard as well as the alternatives he’d considered. “Hold on, I got a picture of it here somewhere.”</p><p>Rhett stretched a long arm past Link to open their office door before Link walked into it face first. “You just didn’t want to be on a paddleboard when I was doing some <em> real </em> surfing, didja.”</p><p>Link rolled his eyes. “You wish. I just didn’t want to keep renting boards so we could <em> both </em> do some <em> real surfing</em>. Bro.” He shouldered past Rhett without acknowledging the door his friend had opened for him and tossed his phone at Rhett carelessly, reliant on Rhett’s startlingly good reflexes to save his phone from hitting the floor. “It was only last week. Shouldn’t be too far down the camera roll, though I took a bunch of pictures of Jade on Sunday, so who knows.” He collapsed dramatically on the sofa and sighed. “Swear to god, I can’t do too many more days of filming an episode in the morning <em> and </em> in the afternoon, even if we need to get Good Mythical Summer underway. I need a damn nap.”</p><p>Rhett shoved his feet off the couch and slumped down onto the end cushion, thumbing open the phone with Link’s passcode. All their lives they had exchanged and shared technology the same way they shared clothes, or exchanged ideas, or traded affectionate jabs.</p><p>“There’s like seventeen surfboards in here, Link. What color is this thing anyway?”</p><p>“Red,” Link replied absently, his eyes falling closed.</p><p>Even beginning to sleepily drift in the quiet room, Link was so tuned in to his friend - had been for so many years it was like being aware of one’s own body - that he immediately felt it when Rhett went abruptly still. “What?” he murmured without bothering to crack an eyelid. “What’s up?”</p><p>“What the hell is this?” Rhett’s voice was sharp and tense enough that Link’s eyes flew open and he sat up. Rhett was clutching his phone tightly and staring down at the screen, angled in such a way that Link couldn’t see what he was looking at.</p><p>“What’s what, dude?”</p><p>“This.” Rhett shoved the phone at him, and Link blanched.</p><p>On the screen was a photo that was very clearly of Link, even though everything from the nose up and the knees down was not in the shot. Link took in his own image: lips flushed, the bottom one indented with his teeth; Adam’s apple prominent mid-bob, with a few beads of sweat glistening on his collarbones and in the hollow of his throat; and the splotchy red flush of arousal staining him from nipples to chin. His cock was visible, still half-hard and plump, tip sticky-slick with his orgasm. Several translucent-white streaks adorned his belly and chest, darkening his chest hair where they lay, giving no doubt as to his activities immediately prior.</p><p>If he hadn’t already been sitting, Link would have collapsed at the sight of <em> this image </em> on his phone, held accusingly toward his face by his lifelong best friend. His mind raced, trying to create a plausible narrative, searching for the words to explain.</p><p>“So remember when Jenna told me what <em> thirst trap </em> meant in that one Slack conversation about staff representation of Mythical Entertainment as far as social media goes?” he began after several seemingly endless moments of silence. Rhett immediately shook his head.</p><p>“Nope. I know what a thirst trap is, Neal. That’s - that’s me doing that damn water flick hair thing. That’s Josh in a tank top or whatever. This is - this is - ” His voice trailed off, as if he was unable to finish it. Link watched in horror and surprise as Rhett turned the phone toward himself and <em> looked at the photo again. </em> He snatched at it, but Rhett pulled it away. “Try again.”</p><p>Link stretched his hand out for the phone again, but Rhett easily held it out of reach. Link noticed that Rhett’s hand was trembling slightly.</p><p>"Who took this?" he demanded, when Link failed to respond. "Christy?"</p><p>"No, I did," Link retorted, a bit of defensive defiance creeping into his tone.</p><p>"You can't have. The angle, the distance -"</p><p>"I used a stand."</p><p>"For a dirty selfie? A dick pic?" Rhett sounded utterly scandalized, but Link could see a flush creeping down his throat and highlighting the apples of his cheeks. He smirked.</p><p>"No," he drawled easily, the picture of innocence. "It's a thirst trap pic. I told you."</p><p>Rhett's breath escaped him in a whoosh. "And <em> I </em> told <em> you</em>: it's a hell of a lot more than that, brother."</p><p>"Why?" Link reached for his phone a third time, but Rhett still kept it away from him. "You more than thirsty?" He dragged his gaze pointedly down the considerable length of Rhett's body, and they both froze when his stare caught and held at the crux of Rhett's endless thighs, where it was entirely too obvious that he was at least half-hard.</p><p>“That’s how it started,” Link continued after a moment, unable to stop staring. His voice trembled slightly, and he swallowed. “I just - we never did that kind of thing as kids, did we? In college, or anything. We got married so young, and it’s - we’re kinda old now, and I just wanted to see what it would be like. I never showed them to anyone.” He finally yanked his gaze away from Rhett’s body and turned it on the floor.</p><p>“You started taking…'thirst trap' photos of yourself,” Rhett said in a strangled voice. Link couldn’t look at him, so he just nodded, staring down in shame. “Fine. Show me.”</p><p>“No!” Link said loudly, before dropping his voice. “No. Why would I show you? This is bad enough, Rhett. Gimme my damn phone.”</p><p>“I want to see what you think is a damn thirst trap, Link. Show me.”</p><p>“Screw you,” Link replied heatedly, and Rhett glared. “It’s none of your business.”</p><p>“This bullshit puts our company and our reputation in jeopardy, <em> Charles</em>. You store your shit on the cloud? You let this nonsense get onto the internet somewhere? You show me these photos, now, because they sure as hell are my business.”</p><p>Link held out a hand and Rhett shoved his phone into it, waiting with arms folded across his chest. As he navigated through his phone with shaking hands, Link felt compelled to try and explain further. He looked up, shoving his free hand through his hair and disrupting it into complete disarray.</p><p>“You were never curious? We didn’t have this kind of thing when we were younger, Rhett. I’ve never sent a - a dick pic, or anything else, to anyone. I never even took any, before - well. Have you?”</p><p>Rhett had been studying him with thinly-veiled impatience, knowing that once Link started talking again, his inability to multitask would distract him. Now he glanced away with an inscrutable expression. “That’s not relevant.”</p><p>Link cocked his head. “Excuse me? Did you just get all righteously indignant at me and you been sending dick pics to Jess or something?”</p><p>Rhett snorted. “Seriously? Do I look that dumb? I have no interest in my nudes getting leaked somewhere. Something I doubt you considered when you - ” For the first time since his discovery had set them both on edge, Rhett truly looked flustered. His hands dropped to his thighs, stroking the length of them through his black jeans in a nervous gesture that Link was very familiar with.</p><p>What he found less familiar - though admittedly, not entirely without precedent - was the ongoing sight of Rhett’s arousal. Link glanced up to see Rhett’s tongue dart out to wet his lips, another bit of body language he knew all too well. Link swallowed again and decided to say nothing about any of it. Instead, he returned to his phone and his excuses, both actions carried out in fits and starts as he got distracted in turn.</p><p>“I always meant to delete them,” he said quietly. “Some of the early ones, I did. And all the ones that are just okay, or the shots I take before I get one that’s just right.”</p><p>“So you just keep the really good, dirty ones,” Rhett replied accusingly, but there was something odd in his tone that made Link pause again, without looking up. Rhett was angry, he knew, but he was also something else, and Link couldn’t hold back the anxiety and anticipation bubbling in his belly at the thought. No matter what, he thought, this discovery was going to change them. Maybe for good.</p><p>He opened the folder and hesitated. “I don’t want to show you these.”</p><p>“You have to,” Rhett retorted instantly, and Link shrank back a bit, phone pressed to his chest.</p><p>“I don’t,” he argued. “I get what you’re saying - keeping them was a stupid risk. Probably taking them in the first place was dumb as hell. I never put them on the cloud; I kept this folder separate and never even synced it to my laptop. These photos only exist on this phone, Rhett, and I was gonna delete them. I was.”</p><p>“You didn’t even remember to move a photo with you covered in cum to that folder before anyone could see it in your camera roll, so maybe I don’t quite believe you.”</p><p>Link’s gaze jerked upward, and he and Rhett locked eyes. Link could feel heat creeping down his neck at Rhett’s blunt words - heat he would have attributed to sheer embarrassment if not for the way he could feel his nipples tightening beneath his thin tee shirt or the pulse of arousal between his thighs. His eyes shifted and darted away, unable to hold Rhett’s stare, and he felt his friend shift on the couch. A quick glance told him the bulge in Rhett’s jeans was more prominent now, and he felt his pulse quicken.</p><p>“You believe me,” Link said quietly. “We don’t lie to each other, not about real stuff. We don’t break trust. So admit it. You want to see them, don’t you.” He looked up just as Rhett looked away again, rubbing his hand over his beard. His face and throat were noticeably pink. “Admit it, and I’ll show you. But if you don’t - well, that’s fine. I’ll delete the folder and that picture you saw, right now, and it’ll be the end of it.”</p><p>“You won’t take any more?” Rhett asked. “Just - that’s it. No more worries.”</p><p>“Exactly.”</p><p>Rhett cleared his throat. The pause that followed stretched out so thin that Link started bouncing his knee anxiously, thumb hovering over the menu that would give him the option to delete his folder of suggestive photos for good.</p><p>“Show me,” Rhett said softly, and Link dropped his phone.</p><p>He fumbled for it in his lap, feeling Rhett’s eyes on him and managing to turn off the screen and nearly drop it onto the floor in his startled efforts to recover.</p><p>“Fine,” he choked out, and took a few deep breaths as he unlocked his phone and reopened the folder. Rhett held out his hand, palm up, but Link shook his head. “No, I’ll show you.”</p><p>He shifted until they were shoulder to shoulder on the brown leather couch, his thigh pressed reassuringly up against Rhett’s. He refused to look to see if Rhett still appeared to be turned-on, too uncertain about what it all meant to want to analyze it - or any other aspect of this conversation - too closely. He justified their proximity in his head as he moved: they had to be close so they both could see the photos on his phone at the same time. There was simply no way Link could allow Rhett to just swipe through suggestive photos of him without <em> somehow </em> being in control of it.</p><p>Link brought up the first picture and hesitated. How long should he linger on each photo before swiping to the next? Did Rhett just want to see what kind of nonsense he’d been up to in order to tease him? Did he want a better idea of just how reckless Link had been so he could chastise him more appropriately? Or, or - </p><p>“I guess that’s not so bad,” Rhett said gruffly, and Link looked down at his phone. He had taken the first one after one of his nude swims, done mid-afternoon with fair warning to the kids so they could avoid the horror of seeing their dad’s butt in the water as he lapped the pool or floated under the bright summer sun. He had gotten out and wrapped a towel around his waist, then drifted to a part of the yard not visible from the sliding glass doors and posed: thumb and forefinger lightly pinching a nipple on his still-wet chest, drawing attention to the breeze-budded pink nubs and the fact that he’d shaved his chest the day before. “We’ve probably done things this suggestive on the show. Waxed our chests, put those dang clothespins on you.”</p><p>Link appreciated the calmer way Rhett was responding to the issue, but he couldn’t help but note the way Rhett’s voice had dropped, low and deeper in his chest like the time they’d held hands during an entire shoot of Good Mythical More. He shrugged one shoulder, nudging it into Rhett’s arm, and swiped. He wondered what would come up next; he didn’t have the order of the photos in this folder memorized, despite looking through them from time to time. The image changed, and Link sucked in a breath.</p><p>The photo captured him from collarbones to mid-thigh. He was wearing a very old graphic tee of his, green and worn thin to the point of nearly threadbare in places. It had shrunk over years of wear and washing, and clung tightly to his arms, shoulders, and ribs. He had rucked up a little to reveal the downy-dark trail of hair from his navel into the pair of navy-blue briefs he wore, also skintight and thin, hemmed in a pale blue. The outline of his cock, though probably mostly soft at the time of the photo, was easily visible through the thin cotton. The lighting was just right, highlighting the swell of his bicep where it flexed to tug up the hem of his tee and the shadow under his hip bone where he’d purposefully tugged down one side of the skimpy briefs, just a bit.</p><p>“Jeez,” Rhett murmured. “What the hell, Link.”</p><p>Link hesitated, wondering if Rhett’s anger was returning, but a quick sideways glance at his friend’s face out of the corner of his eyes revealed an entirely different picture. Rhett’s cheeks were red with splotches of heat that vanished beneath his beard, and his lips were bright pink like he had bitten them just moments before. His eyes were glued to the phone.</p><p>“Want me to keep going?” Link asked softly, because whatever this was, he was going to get consent from Rhett for it every step of the way. More than that - he was going to make the other man admit to what he wanted.</p><p>Rhett nodded, then cleared his throat. “Keep going.”</p><p>Link swiped through several more photos, images that ran the gamut of gender expression that he had found himself drawn to playing with over the past few months since this little habit began. He liked the ones with his dark hair on display - chest, belly, arms, thighs, even a hint of neatly-trimmed pubic hair peeking out over his low-slung boxers in one that made Rhett suck in a sharp breath - because they felt masculine and strong, showing off his body hair and contrasting it with tanned skin and lean muscle. Some photos were shirtless, others were of him in just underwear or swim trunks and a tee or tank, but they radiated masculine energy that he found enticing, even in images of his own body. His gaze lingered over sweat on his brow or the slip-slide of his fingers down his belly, tracing his own happy trail. For a moment, he didn’t care what Rhett thought as he studied the same thirst trap pics beside him: he was fucking <em> hot. </em></p><p>But there were others. Ones taken after he'd trimmed or even shaved, showing off perfectly-shaped nails that he’d trained himself out of chewing down to nubs, or modeling something a bit softer or feminine draped over his skin. He liked to play with it, the contrast of his body perceived one way and his image perceived another. He paused on one of his favorite shots for a few seconds longer in this strange slideshow, studying it and trying to imagine what Rhett was seeing, too.</p><p>It was an image where he snuck the bright red long-lasting lipstick from their wardrobe room and slicked it onto his lips carefully, before delicately applying smears of it to his cock as well and snapping the pic, white boxer briefs shoved halfway down his thighs and a silky crimson scarf wrapped around his neck. It was the only other photo in which he’d bared his cock, and like in all of the more lewd pictures, his whole face was not in the shot. Just his red lips, contrasted beautifully with the silver-dark stubble on his chin. His cock was easily half-hard, the lipstick smears suggestive of an interrupted blowjob. He’d told himself as he painted the crimson streaks onto his dick that he was imagining they were from his wife, but Christy never wore that shade of lipstick.</p><p>Now, staring down at the photo, he could only remember how Rhett had looked in that episode, kissing a mannequin with his red-stained mouth.</p><p>“Fuck,” Rhett said under his breath, and Link snuck a look at his lap. There was no pretending; even with the obscuring aid of thick denim, Rhett’s erection was incredibly obvious. Link licked his lips, mouth going dry.</p><p>“That’s the last one,” he said quietly. Rhett shoved a hand through his long curls.</p><p>“Not quite,” he mumbled.</p><p>Link blinked, then understood. Silently, he navigated to his camera roll and moved the photo Rhett had discovered into his secret folder, before swiping one more time to bring it up on the screen again. When it appeared, Rhett made a soft sound in his throat, a sound that instantly catapulted Link backwards through his memory to a dorm room. Just the two of them, on opposite sides of the room, in the middle of the night, Link pretending to be asleep while Rhett pretended that he wasn’t - </p><p>"I came all the way up to my chin," Link whispered, and watched Rhett's cock visibly twitch, even through his jeans. He bit his lip to hold back his own unexpected moan at the sight.</p><p>"Put away your damn phone," Rhett sputtered out, his voice almost a growl. He stumbled to his feet without another word, heading for the loft. Link watched him go, knowing that this time, he would choose to observe what they had sheepishly termed "boner protocol" and leave the office for fifteen minutes to let Rhett take care of his little problem.</p><p>But as the office door clicked shut behind him, Link decided he wasn’t going to delete the folder after all. He found himself already planning his next photo shoot, and plotting how to get Rhett to see it. Maybe somewhere besides work.</p><p>His days of being a thirst trap, he decided, were far from over.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Come find me on Tumblr at secondhand-watermelon.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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